Welcome to the FRCS Holocaust Stamps Project

One Postage Stamp – For Each Victim of the Holocaust

Stamps Collected to Date: 7,705,370 September 30, 2016!

Each stamp that is collected symbolizes one wasted life, “thrown away” as having no value, much the same way as an envelope bearing a cancelled stamp postage stamp is tossed in the trash.

Begun in 2009, the Holocaust Stamps Project is a component of community service learning (CSL), at FRCS. It is a unique educational initiative that provides opportunities for students to gain a deeper understanding of how important it is to demonstrate acceptance, tolerance, and respect for diversity in their own daily lives.

The goal is to collect 11,000,000 postage stamps as a way to symbolically honor every victim of the Holocaust. Students and community volunteers trim and count the thousands of stamps that arrive daily from across the country and the world. The wide range of themes depicted – people, world history, places, flora and fauna, inventions, ideas, and values – leads to discussions about what makes our diverse world so special.

Eleven million is an unfathomable number. One and a half million were children. Six million were European Jews. An additional five million people were killed for being “different” or resisting the seemingly endless acts of disrespect, prejudice, discrimination, and cruelty by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime during World War II.

Students at the Kindergarten to grade 12 Foxborough Regional Charter School in Foxboro, Massachusetts are collecting cancelled postage stamps. To help them gain an understanding of the significance of that many people having had their lives taken. They are collecting and counting one stamp, one life, at a time.

Participants in the project are learning about how one man’s intolerance and prejudice resulted in the annihilation of so many innocent victims from 21 European countries. Their study of this period in world history has revealed that the dangers of discrimination and bullying are self-evident.

The Project has received donations from 33 states, Canada, Israel, England and Australia. To date about 64% of the stamps needed to reach our goal have been received. Remarkable progress has been made towards reaching the goal of collecting 11 million postage stamps.

Watch the wonderful video below and see the Holocaust Stamps Project in action.

Every stamp that the students touch brings them one step closer to understanding the immediate impact and long term effects of the intolerance and incomprehensible evil acts of the Third Reich during World War II.

Even the youngest at FRCS are involved! Kindergarten students in Mrs. Heidi Solivan’s class are learning to count by tens and hundreds using stamps donated to the Holocaust Stamps Project.

Students have created 11 postage stamp collages as part of the planned series of 18 artworks depicting what they have learned about the events and effects of the Holocaust. In October, 2015, a dedicated group of teens completed the newest collage, “Music is a Dream”, which they designed to honor the memory of concert pianist Alice Herz Sommer. Ms. Sommer was the oldest living Holocaust survivor, age 110, at the time of her death in May 2014.

Left to right with their “Music is a Dream” collage:

Nancia Poteau, Temitope Faleye, Dairaneara Haith, and Marissa Durden.

Help SUPPORT the project – FOR SALE – Note Card Set

Set of 10 Note Cards featuring the HSP collages with envelopes. – $15.00/set

How to Order

Thank you!

Wanted: Please send us your used ‘white roses’ stamps to help students create their next collage honoring the courageous German college students who dared to defy the Third Reich with their White Rose Movement resistance activities.

‘Books Can Not Be Killed By Fire’ is a work-in-progress to be completed during 2015-16.

Work continues during 2015-16 on the “I Am the Last Witness” collage, with visitors who attend Holocaust Stamps Project events contributing individually-formed people out of donated stamps.

FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

We invite you to click HERE to download, read and share the latest flyer detailing the Holocaust Stamps Project, updated as of March 2016.

To view the entire collage collection on the Views and Voices page click HERE.

The Holocaust Stamp Project by the Numbers:

7,705,370 – Stamps collected as of September 30, 2016

18 – Postage stamp collages to be created with the stamps

37 – Number of states from which stamps have arrived as of 12/15, plus Canada, Israel, England and Australia.

11,000,000 – Goal to collect in stamps, honoring the lives of six million Jews and five million other victims on intolerance who perished during the Holocaust

In the News – Click here to read newspaper articles written about The Holocaust Stamp Project

To date, the kindergarten to grade 12 FRCS community has trimmed and counted 6.5 million cancelled postage stamps, each one representing a single life lost during the Holocaust.

The students ask many thoughtful questions, not the least of which is “Why?” And they also wonder how our world might be different today “if” one of the slain 11 million… might have been the scientist to discover the cure for cancer?

Our goal is not only to honor the memories the 11 million Holocaust victims, but also to celebrate the lives of those who still survive today and bravely share their powerful personal memories and stories.

PLEASE KEEP SAVING STAMPS! If possible, TRIM to just outside the perforation and/or include a COUNT of how many stamps you are donating. We welcome donations of used, damaged, or new stamps and unwanted stamp collections from individuals as well as clubs, businesses, churches and synagogues, and philatelists.